Is Life Worth Living Without Immortality? / A Lecture Delivered Before the Independent Religious Society, Chicago

by M. M. Mangasarian

As already intimated, the liberal party in the church regards Prof. James as a defender of the faith. He is classed with such men as Sir Oliver Lodge and Lord Kelvin, who though scientists still believe in the supernatural, and by their example have made such a belief respectable. It must be borne in mind, however, that these distinguished men are Christians only, if at all, in a very loose sense of the word. All the cardinal doctrines of revelation, such as the creation, the atonement, the incarnation, and a personal God—even one, to say nothing of a trinity—they reject. These gentlemen have not enough faith to be baptised to-day, had they not been baptised in their childhood,—or to be received into any Christian church without greatly stretching the rules in their behalf. It remains then quite true, and the argument has not yet been answered, that there is not a single eminent thinker in the world to-day who will subscribe to the creed of Christendom without first going through it with a blue pencil, or a pair of scissors. But Prof. James, as also Lodge and Kelvin, if they are not supernaturalists in the ordinary sense of the word, neither are they anti-supernaturalists. They are between and betwixt, if I may use that phrase—not quite ready to part with supernaturalism altogether, nor yet able to hold on to it in its entirety, and so they linger somewhere on the borders or the edge of it.

The first remark I have to make on the position of these newly recruited defenders of supernaturalism—even though the supernaturalism which they defend be of the attenuated kind—is, that their argument is not even an improvement on that of the theologian. I like the dogmatic and autocratic, "thus saith the Lord," of theology, much better than the "suit yourself" of these gentlemen. The one position is as destructive of intellectual integrity, as the other. The theologian starts with the fallacy that God can make a thing true by an act of his will—that his say so makes all need of evidence superfluous. Prof. James and the men of his school start with a proposition equally fatal to the truth—namely; that whatever we wish to be true concerning the unknown is true. All that is needed, for instance, to give the universe a God is to wish for one. All that is necessary to make a man immortal is to desire and believe that he is. "The Will to Believe," which is the title of one of the professor's writings, makes truth the creature of man, as theology makes it the creature of God. You see that after all, the theologian and the "scientific" supernaturalist pull together. That is to say, when science lends itself to theology, it ceases to be scientific. It is not theology that goes over to science, but science that goes over to theology. As soon as science appears at the camp of theology, it is forthwith swallowed up. When Prof. James speaks of the "will to believe," and never mind the evidence, he is borrowing from theology, the "will to create" of God.

Even as the Deity in creating did not have to consider anything but his glory and pleasure, likewise man in believing does not have to consider anything but his needs and desires. Ask, "What is Truth?" and the theologian answers: "Whatever God wants it to be." Ask now the scientist allies of the supernatural, "What is Truth," and they answer: "Whatever man desires or craves it to be." Of course, it may be objected that it is only concerning the unknown that man is permitted to dispense with evidence and consult his will. But there is no merit, for instance, in a man not telling any falsehoods where he is sure of being found out; his character is tested by his refusal to lie where he is sure he never will be found out. It is concerning the unknown about which we can say anything and everything we please without the fear of ever being caught, that we should restrain ourselves and show our loyalty to the everlasting law of honor, never to depart from veracity. To make any assertions about the unknown is to take an undue advantage of one's neighbors. "Truth is not mine to do with it as I please," said Giordano Bruno, "I must obey the truth, not command it." But the theologico-scientific position is the very reverse of this. If a god were to ask the question, "What is Truth?" His priests would answer, "Lord, suit thyself." If men asked, "What is Truth?" the Harvard professor and his colleagues would reply, "It depends upon your will to believe."

The name given to this "free and easy philosophy," if I may use such an expression—is pragmatism, which is a word from the Greek root pragmatikos, whence our word "practice" and "practical." The idea at the basis of this philosophy is that whatever is practical and business-like—whatever is necessary to a given program, is authoritative. The philosopher, Kant, was one of the first to urge that we have a right to believe as we please concerning the things which we can neither prove nor disprove by evidence, if such beliefs are necessary to morality. His modern disciples following his leadership, take the position that it is the usefulness of a hypothesis or a belief, and not its truth, that should concern us. "Does it work," is the test, they say, of the value of a scheme or statement, and not, "Is it true?" If it works, what do we care whether or not it be true. If it does not work, it is of no help to us even if it were true. This is identically the same argument which is advanced by the Roman Catholics, to justify for instance, the belief in the existence, somewhere in the universe, of a place called purgatory. "The doctrine of purgatory works," argues the priest, and therefore, it makes no difference whether or not such a place really exists. It is a useful, consoling and profitable doctrine. Therefore it is as good as true. In the phraseology of pragmatism, millions of people want a purgatory, therefore, there is one. And once again, to the question, "What is Truth," the answer of both the theologian and the pragmatist is, "Do not bother about it." And this describes the attitude of the Protestant as well as of the Catholic toward truth. They do not bother about it. Yes, they do not bother about it. That is why progress limps and the darkness lingers. People have been brought up not to bother about truth, which explains why error is still king of more than half of the world. I cannot find the words—all words fail me to express my disappointment that a teacher of the youth in one of our great institutions, who are to be the America of tomorrow, should in any way contribute to the impression that truth is secondary; that our needs, our interests, our inclinations, or our whims, come first, and that if we have not the courage to look the truth in the face, we can turn around and make terms with myth and fable.

If we were disposed to trip the professor, or by one single thrust to disqualify him for further action in the arena of thought, we could say that even from the point of view of the pragmatist, truth comes first, and that by no imaginable manœuvring can truth be shifted to a subordinate rank. It cannot be done. Listen! You may not have to prove the existence of a God, or of a future, or of a purgatory, before believing in it. Granted: but you have to prove and you are trying to prove, that it is true that you do not have to prove them. Even pragmatists who say that utility is before truth, labor to prove that it is true that utility is before truth. In other words, they have got to prove the truth of their theory, whatever that may be, before they can make it have any value, or before it can command our respect. Things have to be true else they cannot exist. All the labor of Prof. James has for its object the demonstration of what he considers to be a truth, namely: that the truth of the belief concerning the unknown is not essential. In other words, God may be true or not, a future life may be true or not, but it has to be true that it makes no difference whether they are true or not. Wiggle as we may, we cannot escape the ring of reason that embraces life. This is what I mean when I say that the stars fight for Rationalism. Truth is so tightly screwed and made fast to the top of the flag-pole that even hands of iron and steel cannot pull it down to a lower notch.

A second remark I would make on Prof. James' manner of reasoning is that such arguments as he uses to prop up the belief in God and immortality show, not confidence, but desperation, if it is not too strong a word to use. Urging us to take risks, to have the audacity, to ignore the question of evidence, to suit ourselves, and, not to mind the facts, is not the language of sobriety, but of recklessness. To say to a man standing on the edge of a precipice and looking down into a chasm of unknown depth and darkness, to jump over, because, perchance, he may discover his heart's desire at the bottom, is frantic advice, and a man has to be in a panicky state of mind to let go of the sun and of the green earth for a possible world at the bottom of the abyss. It was a thought of Emerson that the humblest bug crawling in the dust with its back to the sun, and shining with the colors of the rainbow, is a thing more sublime than any possible angel. If there were the slightest foundation for the belief in an unseen world, no one would think of resorting to such extreme measures as our learned professor does, to uphold it. When I see a man huffing and puffing, I do not conclude that he has a strong case, on the contrary, I am apt to suspect that it is the weakness of his cause which has disturbed his serenity. To tell us that we can will ourselves immortal, or will God into existence, and that all we need is the audacity to plunge into the unknown, whatever the risks, reminds me of La Fontaine's parable of the frog—who thought he could will himself into the size of a cow—with fatal results. The beginning of wisdom is to recognize one's limitations. To tell a man that he can will things into existence is to do him an injury. Pitiful is the God, and chimerical the immortality that has no better foundation than the whim of man.

According to the doctrine of "The will to believe" there would be no God if there were no men to "will" his existence, and no immortality if men did not desire it. This is theology dressed up as philosophy or science. How was the world made? And the theologians answer, God said, "Let there be light, and there was light." How was God made? And the pragmatists answer, "Man said, let there be a God, and there was one." This is trifling. If the word is not too harsh, I shall call it sophistry, or mental gymnastics, to which men never resort except when straight reasoning will not help them.

Sophistry is a plea of guilty. I was debating the other evening in a Milwaukee theater on the question of the responsibility for the burning of Joan of Arc. While listening to the defense of the gentleman who was trying to prove that the Catholic Church was not responsible for her martyrdom, I said to myself that such a defense would never have been thought of were it not for the fact that the old claim that the church of God cannot err had not broken down. In the same way the defense that the bible should be taken allegorically, proves that the old position that the bible is from cover to cover the word of God with every letter and punctuation, as well as word and meaning inspired, is no longer tenable. To say that the bible must not be taken literally is but another way of saying that the bible is not true, or that you can make it mean what you please. Men never put up such a defense for anything unless they are driven to it by sheer desperation.

My third remark on the pragmatic philosophy of Professor James is that, besides doing violence to our reason, his doctrine that an unseen world is indispensable to make life worth living, or to help make the world moral, places man not only in an unenviable light, but it also does him a great injustice. If it is true that a man will make a beast of himself if he finds out that he is not a God, I take the position that he is beyond hope. Nothing can save him. But it is not true. It is a priestly tale that a man will not behave himself unless we can promise him the moon, or the sun, or eternity. A man would only be a contemptible animal if he must be given toys and trinkets and sawdust dolls to divert his attention from mischief. The claim of the preachers that unless men are assured of black-eyed houris and golden harps, or at least,—some sort of a ghostly existence,—somewhere and at sometime in the future, they will convert life into a debauch, is simply a falsehood. Man is not so depraved as that. Indeed, the doctrine of total depravity was invented by the priests to create a demand for the offices of the church. The priest cannot afford to believe in human nature. If a man can save himself, or if he can do good by his own effort, what need would there be of the mysteries and the sacraments,—the rites and the dogmas?

I had occasion to tell you a few Sundays ago that if a lily can be white, or a rose so wondrous fair, or a dog so loyal and heroic, without dickering with the universe for a future reward, man can do, at least, as much. Would this be expecting too much of him?